146 
American Agriculturist, September 6,1924 
Hay—Most Important, Gets the Least Attention 
A Plow Handle Talk by a Man Who Raised Over 500 Tons This Year 
H. E. COOK 
C AN we safely say that our most important 
eastern crop, the grass crop, receives the 
least attention of any crop we grow? Some¬ 
how, because nature is so lavish in providing 
a covering, we forget that she will only give 
the covering and then ask us to provide ways 
and means if we want more. 
Most of us want more, 
but not all of us are doing 
the things neqessary to get 
more. Really the low pre¬ 
vailing prices of recent 
years have not given much 
encouragement for study 
and work. My experience 
has been that pretty well 
defined rules and methods 
must be followed if annual 
worth-while crops are to be 
harvested. This means that 
the effect of seasonable 
H. E. COOK variations must be reduced 
to a minimum. All other 
things being under control, hay plants have an 
outstanding advantage over whole season crops 
that a safe growth can be made early before 
drouth can materially injure the plants. The year 
1888 was the only exception to this rule in my 
memory, with practically no rainfall from April 1 
to July 1st. 
Most of us understand the dirt mulch value for 
cultivated plants. Hay plants need mulch just 
the same, but of a different kind and prepared the 
year or years before. Fortunately all of our grass 
plants are low temperature plants, growing early 
in the spring even under frosting conditions. Of 
course, frost usually lessens growth, especially of 
the hay plants, that must produce long stalks. 
Pasture blue grass which has a more leafy growth 
is less injured for the same reason that it with¬ 
stands grazing better. 
If these plants have a congenial home for the 
winter they will be as ready for action in the spring 
as a woodchuck. Land, therefore, must have 
reasonable drainage. Grass roots will stand a lot 
of water but not standing water. I have grown 
splendid hay crops on a silt subsoil which to the 
eye seems quite impervious to water but there is 
enough filtration to satisfy the grass roots. If 
water does not drain off the nitrates will not form, 
bacteria will remain dormant and we lose the 
advantage of early moisture. Good farming, that 
is, profitable farming, means not much more than 
taking advantage of natural conditions by supple¬ 
menting and working with them. Profits will 
otherwise disappear. Good cultivation and avail¬ 
able plant food are necessary. Grass plants are not 
unlike potatoes and corn; they positively must 
have plant food in abundance. 
Summer Fallow a Safe Investment 
A plant that grows rapidly and at low tempera¬ 
tures can't forage for its fodder. There are differ¬ 
ing methods that may give this sort of preparation. 
I have not practiced the Clark plan of summer 
fallow and fall seeding independent of a grain 
crop enough to learn it, and few people have. I 
expect the drawback is that clovers do not respond 
to late summer seeding like redtop and timothy. 
I don’t think we can afford to abandon clover 
sowing and so we continue seeding with grain in 
the spring. The summer fallow, however, is a 
safe and sure investment and should have a place 
on every farm. 
Somehow, there is a disposition to put away the 
tillage tools after the spring’s work has been 
finished—using present accepted methods of 
seeding with grain. We use approximately four 
quarts of timothy, three quarts of medium red 
clover, one quart of alsike and four quarts of 
alfalfa per acre. The first year the three clovers 
appear with timothy, the red predominating. The 
second year the red partly disappears and the 
alfalfa increases. 
Top dressing with a spreader in the fall seems 
to be our best method of preserving the growth 
and establishing the much-to-be-desired mulch 
previously mentioned. We have a six-acre field 
that has just yielded its eleventh cutting, i n 
weight I should estimate about three tons per 
acre—my estimate made from a judgment formed 
from a number of years of weighing hay and other 
crops. Anyhow, the crop was sufficiently out¬ 
standing to attract observation and discussion as 
to how it was done. It is naturally good grass 
land to which there have been added, in eight 
years out of the eleven, seven loads of stable 
manure per acre but no chemical manures of any 
sort. This reference does not mean that I would 
always advise permanent meadows of mixed 
grasses, of alfalfa no one would differ. If the 
field is adapted, the plants fed and the plan is 
best for that farm, it can be done. 
Back again to our meadow mulch—all hay 
plants have easily injured crowns and hay growers 
will profit almost in proportion to the way they 
protect these crowns. In earlier days I often 
wondered how hay farmers could grow' crops 
wfithout stable manure. Now I understand. On 
the hay farms, cows were not eating the second 
growth, thereby protecting the plants and forming 
a mulch by the decay of the aftermath. It seems 
beyond comprehension that dairy farmers will 
allow cows to grace the scanty second growth. 
When the growth is heavy, say 25 to 50 per cent, 
of the first crop, no serious damage will occur by 
pasturing a portion, if the animals do not poach 
the land. On meadows to be plowed the follow ing 
year, cows may be allowed to run indefinitely, 
saving their droppings without much waste for a 
succeeding crop. 
Two false notions prevail in regard to this 
second growth, one that it is wasted if not made 
into milk and the other that a heavy growth will 
smother and cause so-called winter killing of the 
roots. This is about as reasonable as it is to 
expect that a man will smother and die because he 
uses covering enough in bed to keep his body 
warm. Not only does the grass give protection to 
(Continued on page 14-7) 
Buying Cooperatively Through Local Dealers 
How the Farmers of Waukesha County Save Money 
T hat it is possible to buy at reduced rates 
and still patronize the home dealers, is being 
demonstrated by the Waukesha County Farm 
Bureau, Wisconsin. In some localities consider¬ 
able ill-feeling had resulted on the part of home 
merchants because farmers’ organizations bought 
everything over their heads, so the officers of the 
Waukesha association determined to try out a new 
policy. 
“We felt that our owm business men should be 
given first chance to do our buying for us,” 
explained O. H. Cooley, Secretary of the Farm 
Bureau. “So we put our problem frankly up to 
them. We told them that we w'ould insist upon 
very material reduction in prices, but in return for 
that we would buy in large quantities, and pay 
cash. 
“See how that would benefit both farmer and 
dealer? The dealer was sure of his money on the 
spot, and would not have to charge off any losses. 
The farmer was taught the value of paying cash 
and getting his discount; he w r ould be w'eaned 
away from the bad business policy of charging his 
purchases. Credit badly used keeps more than one 
farmer poor.” 
Take the matter of coal, for instance. The 
Waukesha members use about a thousand tons a 
year, so Secretary Cooley asked for bids from all 
the county coal dealers for the full thousand tons. 
The lowest bidder gets the business. Gasoline and 
oil is another proposition on which Cooley is 
working. He has already succeeded in getting the 
chief oil companies, through their local dealers, to 
sell at car-load rates, yet making individual 
deliveries in small lots to the participating mem¬ 
bers. 
Grass seed is also an important item. One 
Waukesha County farmer gave the Farm Bureau 
By W. A. FREEHOFF 
his check for $5,000, to cover his purchases of 
Grimm alfalfa. There are five seed dealers in the 
county who gave a rebate of one and one-half 
cents a pound on grass seeds. About 1,000 auto¬ 
mobile tires are handled per year, at discounts 
ranging from 15 per cent, to 20 per cent. A car¬ 
load of flour is ordered about every three months, 
at a saving of $1.50 to $2.00 per barrel 1 
Cooley’s records show that the Waukesha 
Farm Bureau, in less than a year, sold $80,082.25 
worth of merchandise to its members at an 
estimated saving of $12,177.25, or an average 
saving to each member of $20.29 —more than twice 
the annual membership fee. 
The Waukesha County Farm Bureau has also 
been active in helping the milk shippers of the 
Milwaukee fluid milk territory get the best pos¬ 
sible price for their milk. Ten farm bureau mem¬ 
bers, one from each town where possible, are on the 
milk shippers’ board which meets with the Mil- 
City Feller —Say! Is that bull safe? 
Rustic —Well, he’s a dangsite safer’n you are! 
— Judge. 
waukee distributors. This board, after conferring 
with the distributors, reports back to the pro¬ 
ducers, and then goes back and closes its deals. 
There are 1,500 milk shippers in the county, and 
the work pf the farm bureau, it is estimated by 
Cooley, has saved them a good many thousand 
dollars in the past two years. 
In order to get the reduced prices for quantity 
buying, the Bureau members are not required to 
buy more than they need at one time. Most 
contracts cover a year, and the farmers take their 
produce, and pay for it, as they need it. Reduc¬ 
tions are often made in the form of dividend checks 
when the contract has been fulfilled; a good case 
in point being a check for $800 recently distributed 
by Cooley to' members on oil purchases. 
Cooley also conducts an exchange department 
for the members. This has proved particularly 
useful in selling seed corn and grains, seed potatoes, 
etc. This spring he secured quite a little seed corn 
from Farm Bureaus in Minnesota and Iowa to eke 
out a short local supply. During the spring rush 
there were days on which over a thousand dollars’ 
worth of this “exchange” business was done. 
Since the Waukesha Farm Bureau has been 
adopting this business policy, of making member¬ 
ships pay out in hard dollars and cents, there has 
been renewed interest in the Bureau, and many 
volunteer memberships are now coming in. Mem¬ 
bership is now a business proposition in which 
direct and not intangible returns are guaranteed. 
Last year the Bureau treasury was empty, and 
this year it showed a balance of over three hundred 
dollars. Other Farm Bureau units have written 
Cooley and secured an outline of the plan, %nd the 
idea is spreading in a manner which indicates that 
the Waukesha Bureau has hit upon a workable, 
business program. 
